Thursday, November 13, 2014

It’s not everyday I get really excited about painting. Exciting painting pops and pulsates and confuses me a little. Deirdre McAdams' canvases are painted and sprayed symbols of abstracted and approximate forms and ideas. Sometimes there’s a disagreement between forms existing on different planes or heavy lines delineating shadow beyond the scope of logic that collide with her astute nod to the ‘graffic’ aesthetic. This dissent on the surface of the picture makes for weird, mesmerizing and exciting works that are big enough to hold a wall and yet they demand your attention to come closer to view.

Her technique is sharp and speckled, formulaic and free form. The works trigger a moment of familiarity that dupes you into thinking you understand what you’re seeing, only to shift gears into that terrain of life territory that is simultaneously mutable and arbitrary. Not unlike a story of days, the works form, take a direction and roll out. Something happens along the way and it's best to pay attention as the journey holds the heart. With titles that point out that direction; Illustration, Stone Tablet (with detail), Puzzle Painting and Monologue, McAdams deftly tells a compellingly rich and strange story through histories of geometric abstraction and minimal painting.

-EZ, 2014

Deirdre McAdams is a visual artist living and working in Vancouver, BC. She is a graduate of Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2008), and the Victoria College of Art (2003), where she studied painting.

About CSA / FAQ

CSA Space is an independent Canadian project space founded by Christopher Brayshaw, Adam Harrison, and Steven Tong.

CSA exhibits innovative contemporary artworks of all kinds. Exhibitions are by invitation only and based on the curators' own aesthetic judgments. Some exhibitions are developed between an individual curator and an artist or artists; others involve the whole curatorial team.

Open 7 days a week during normal business hours. Closed Christmas and New Year's Day. See Pulpfiction Books (2422 Main Street) for admission.

CONTACT

info@csaspace.ca

*or* the new CSA Space Facebook group. If you have a Facebook account, this is the best way to stay apprised of upcoming shows and special events.REGARDING SUBMISSIONS

Exhibitions at CSA are by invitation only.

The best way to get a show at CSA is to have a CSA curator see your work when it is presented at a commercial gallery, public institution, artist-run center, or independent project space, and for them to be impressed by it.

Please send all invitations to upcoming exhibitions to info@csaspace.ca. Time permitting, we will alsoview artist websites whose details are sent to the same address.